I'm confused. Wasn't the reason for the US invasion of Iraq to repel the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait?

Or are you talking about the resumption of military action that deposed Saddam Hussein and his government? If so, I thought the reason for that was Saddam's continued refusal to abide by the terms of the cease-fire that allowed him to remain in power after the first invasion.

I have no doubt that the war against al-Qaeda was part of the motivation, but did the Bush adminstration cite it as a casus belli? I don't think so

Well, since the surge worked and since Al Qaeda was gutted there and discredited in the Islamic world there, it's nice to see our intellectual betters in the Democrat Party finally catching up with reality.

PS Only slightly OT:

Off Drudge, "demonstrators" invade the US Embassy grounds. "Both the U.S. and France accused Syrian security forces of being too slow to respond to the attacks."

IIRC, this is how it started in Teheran 32 years ago. Can we start calling him "Jimmy" Obama now?

She doesn't know about the camp in Northern Iaq. Doesn't care about the payments to the suicide bomber's families, thinks the plane fuselage in the Baghdad palace grounds was for the grandkids to play in, and on and on ...

Probably thinks the plastic shredder was for recycling, too.

Iraq being green and all that.

It will be interesting to see how Panetta does. I have my doubts, seeing him mainly as a closer / hatchet man to gut the military.

Let's not get carried away. He said Al Qaeda attacked the U.S. on 9/11, and that we've been fighting because of that. I didn't hear him link Iraq to 9/11 or Al Qaeda. Instead he only linked the Iraq invasion to 9/11, which I think is undisputed (no 9/11, no invasion or regime change).

Depends a bit on how you define "al Qaeda." If it is just Osama bin Laden's operation, then I think other, unsung, agencies of our Gov't stifled that by cutting off their access to financial networks.If it is "radical Islam" in general, then I think we got a lot out of this war by removing Saddam and planting the beginnings of a democratic republic in their midst. The "Arab Spring," such as it is, would not have happened woithout the Iraq war(s). And that is not over yet; the Assad regime in Syria is fighting for its life - though that is not getting much coverage, for some reason - and even in Iran, which is our main remaining enemy, there are constant rumbles of unrest - which also is not getting much coverage, for some reason.

"Dems hated Bush's evil fraudulent Iraq war that snagged the oil fields and gave us a tactical base from which to fight our Iranian enemy."

Actually, any American who was intellectually honest and opposed to our engaging in baseless and criminal wars of aggression hated Bush's fraudulent invasion of Iraq, not just Democrats--and many Dems in Congress supported it, to their everlasting discredit.

As to "our Iranian enemy," they are so only because we choose to make and keep them so, (in the same way we chose to make Castro's Cuba our enemy, to no good purpose at all).

Well, Scott, if we have had not actually had to fight any wars in nearly 70 years--as opposed to choosing to wage wars to impose our political will on the world--why expend our national treasure on training redundant soldiers?

Even George Washington warned against the perils of maintaing standing armies. (Which was not common practice prior to WW II; why must it remain so now?)

Because others do train soldiers, a concept you seem unable to grasp. The world is what it is, not what you want it to be. I could quote De Re Militari to you, but it wouldn't sink in, so what's the use.

It was not common practice because the Brits did it for the rest of us.Post WWII and the fall of the Soviet Union, the U.S. is the big kahuna, and it is in our interest to prevent the smaller fish from starting anything that might grow into something.

"Because others do train soldiers, a concept you seem unable to grasp. The world is what it is, not what you want it to be."

Meaning?

Given that we have not actually been really threatened by any other power in over half a century, what is this "world is what it is" you speak of?

(Yes, yes...you'll mention the Soviets, but they were more afraid of us than we of them-because of our bombs, not because of our soldiers--and we were never going to have a shooting war with them. Our post-WWII military buildup has never had a thing to do with facing "the world as it is" and everything to do with enriching arms merchants, enlarging and consolidating the power of the military/industrial/intelligence complex, and imposing our will on the rest of the world.)

(The Uncredentialed, Crypto Jew) BFD. We don't need combat ready soldiers given that we have not fought in any necessary wars since WW II, (and some argue that was unnecessary).

But Cookie we couldn’t have saved your beloved USSR had we not fought WWII…Stalin would not have prevailed and where would Social Justice be today, otherwise?

Oh and BTW Cooke ALL wars are “wars of choice.” Just like ALL fights are fights of choice, you CHOSOSE to fight…an aggression takes only one person a conflict takes more than one…so ALL wars are wars of choice…Poland didn’t have to fight back in 1939, just like the Czech’s chose to NOT fight in 1968…doesn’t mean you don’t get occupied, but it does mean there’s no war.

Well, speaking as a [former] Norwegian, I am very thankful that the Americans felt it "necessary" to fight in WWII; I could only wish that Mr. Roosevelt had figured that out a little sooner, or even much sooner, and perhaps applied a little pressure to ht French and the British to stop Hitler when he first marched into the Rhineland.

@Vicki: How many al Qaeda nutjobs were attracted to and killed in Iraq by superior force? I know we suffered terrible casualties, but the enemy paid even higher prices due to less favorable defensive fighting conditions. Contrast that with conditions in Afghanistan.

A strategic notion behind Iraq was to draw forth the bastards and kill them in the open. Of course, many on your side resisted demonizing the "freedom fighters."

The theory underlying the invasion of Iraq had two parts. The first was the CIA's assertion that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction (mostly poison gas) and those weapons of mass destruction would soon (if they didn't already) include nuclear devices and lethal pathogens. And, some of those weapons could fall into al Qaeda hands via any of a number of pathways, of which actually receiving them from the hands of Saddam was probably the least likely. Regardless of whether Saddam Hussein would be willing to hand over WMD to al Qaeda, it would only take the suborning of a handful of key men in key places to get these weapons into al Qaeda hands.

The second part was a calculated decision to leave our troops in Iraq as a target for al Qaeda attacks. The idea was that we would prefer AQI (al Qaeda in Iraq) to target troops who were trained, armed, and able to fight back, versus possible al Qaeda attacks on unarmed Americans in the United States.

Well, we did find some small stocks of poison gas, no weaponized pathogens, and no nukes. Looks as though George Tenet and Valeri Plame (the analyst responsible for assessing Iraqi WMD) were wrong.

On the other point, Rumsfeld failed to provide adequate doctrine and armored vehicles to protect the troops. We could have lost to AQI, but we won despite Rumsfeld. (Though I can't figure out why Obama is dragging out the end game.) But we won only thanks to General Petraeus and George W. Bush, not to mention troops that are person for person better than any soldiers that have ever served anywhere at any time.

Not true at all. Our NCO and junior officer ranks are full of combat veterans with real-world experience. That's hardly "nothing".

===================Unfortunately, along with the trillions that went to bail out the deregulated Banking and Securities industries and all their poison paper...we also squandered 1 trillion on the Noble Purple-fingered Iraqi Freedom Lovers.Now forced to make big defense cutbacks to keep the tax cuts for the wealthy....Republicans are saying no more neocon wars of adventure, no more hideously expensive "Hero Boots on The Ground".That means substantial cuts are coming for the Army and Marines - and a lot of those "combat veterens with real life experience" will be applying that valuable insight, hopefully with some head of the line consideration on job applications - for those ChinaMart positions.

With us forced by economic necessity into a greatly reduced land warfare force - drones, the AF, the Navy, and CIA prevail.

China gets the Iraqi oil contracts.Karzai's clan gets to be billionaires.Republicans and Dems combined to bail out "too big to fail" Bankers and Wall Streeters, many who have used those new printed dollars to substantially enrich their pre-2008 positions. And the people that became IED fodder and who we found were a money pit to deploy....for 8 years lauded as "the hero troops with boots on the ground" - are the losers.

In the immortal words of Dr. Emmett Brown, "You have to learn to think four-dimensionally Marty!"

B. He had no WMD to provide them even if he had had links with them, which:

Once again, just because he didn't have them at the time doesn't mean he couldn't have had them at some point in the future. I thought this was the weak link in the Bush casus belli, too much emphasis on existing capability, not enough emphasis on latent capability.

"...just because he didn't have them at the time doesn't mean he couldn't have had them at some point in the future."

Just because Micronesia isn't a threat to America now doesn't mean that someday they won't one day develop nuclear-powered laser-beam shooting real-life Transformers that will take over the world! Or, that just because the weasle-eyed asshole who lives next door has never threatened or even spoken to you up to now, he won't go fucking berserk tomorrow or next week or next month and try to take out your family!

Why shouldn't we assume every single nation and every single individual outside our own nation or families, respectively, (or even inside our own families) is a deadly threat just waiting to happen, and take preemptive action? Why shouldn't the police arrest every manjack of us on the presumption that eventually, one day we will all break a law or utter a harsh word get into an altercation of some kind with somebody?

None of that glazed-donut screed of yours changes the fact that our core military personal are highly experienced, battle-hardened experts at what they do.

==================And many are about to be RIF'd.(Reduction in Force) - so wish them luck on life after the Army and Marines.To preserve the "no taxes" Pledge to Grover Norquist, Republicans have agreed to some bigtime gutting at Defense.That's what you get when you fight a trillion dollar nation building sort of war with no one paying for it over 10 years on presumption "tax cuts" would "grow the economy".Now the bills are due and the Army and Marines look to be the fall guys.

" He had no WMD to provide them even if he had had links with them, which":

Once again, just because he didn't have them at the time doesn't mean he couldn't have had them at some point in the future. I thought this was the weak link in the Bush casus belli, too much emphasis on existing capability, not enough emphasis on latent capability.

The great weak link in endless Neocon wars of prophylaxis - you invade anyone that "COULD" someday have the capacity to "send WMD to Evildoers!!" besides the America is bankrupt thing ---is the sheer number of nations that such an idiot neocon base condition for endless war would involve.

About 15-18 Muslim nations have the capacity to develop WMD and give them to Evildoers!! someday. Or already have WMD. Plus another 15-20 possibly unsavory or unsavory in the future regimes elsewhere (Russia, China, Cuba, Venezuela, Nigeria, S Africa, Burma, Israel, Germany, etc.) passing on weaponry by ideaology or simply to make money.

The Neocon Era of multiple preventative wars for "Freedom Loving" is over. Now we are back to deterrance, which like in the Cold War will rest on, ability to kill lots of enemy - fighters and non-combatants - if attacked.

Just because Micronesia isn't a threat to America now doesn't mean that someday they won't one day develop nuclear-powered laser-beam shooting real-life Transformers that will take over the world!

Reductio ad absurdum. Look it up.

Hussein proved he was both capable and willing to use WMD's. He also proved his willingness to sponsor terrorist attacks, primarily against Israel but also against other nations. That's a far cry from Micronesia.

6 are nuclear capable, inc Pakistan, oviously.12 Of them have fielded indigenously developed war gases inc. nerve gases. Most dropped it in the 70s with Nixons NPTs.8 had developed significant biowar capacity by the 70s, mainly Anthrax but Egypt, Syria, Pakistan, and Turkey had other lethal bugs. All but Iran, Iraq, Pakistan dropped them under pressure, w/Iraq finally caving, in 1995.

So the neocon idea of endless wars and nation building to "prevent the option" of any Muslim nation with capacity to do it - developing and giving WMD to "Evildoers" was a pipe dream to start with. The US does not have the treasure or the will to do that.

In negotiations, rather than raise taxes, Republicans agreed to go along with substantial defense budget reductions. That would be Cantor and Speaker Boehner.

No flailing, just facts.

And the Army takes the bulk of the planned cuts on the chin because they are fiendishly expensive to deploy over long periods of time. Unless we plan to invade and Nation-build, the AF,Navy are far more effective and cheaper to use in global power projection.

What Cook is really saying is that it would have been preferable to have European Jewry destroyed. Unnecessary my ass.

But Ark had it right earlier: the lack of compliance with the cease fire was the casus belli offered by the Bush administration. WMD was one of a very long list of arguments in favor of resuming hostilities. There were so many arguments offered, by the way, that the New York Times wrote an op-ed complaining that Bush offered too many reasons. Just a few years later, they'd somehow forget about all but one.

On the subject of WMD and Saddam’s intentions: There’s the fact of the 550 metric tons of yellowcake that Saddam had stored away since even before the invasion of Kuwait. And of course the centrifuge that in 2003 was dug up where it was buried on the property of one of Saddam’s former regime officials. Yellowcake + centrifuges = weapons grade fissionable material sometime down the road when the US would tire of keeping a close eye on Saddam, or at least that seemed to be Saddam’s hope. But after 13 years of Saddam stubbornly violating every sanction imposed after his defeat in Kuwait Bush, jr. had enough and decided to kick ass.

Saddam evidently thought that he could pull his shenanigans with impunity. After all, hadn’t Bush, sr. left Saddam in place after he was run out of Kuwait? That fact probably helped Saddam fall for the “US is a paper tiger” meme fostered by OBL.

Contrast can be an effective persuader. In most of the nations in the area you have oppression and misery. In Iraq you have something obviously better. It pisses off the miserables. Democratic elections, a free press, a plethora of political parties vying for the Iraqi voters’ attention – all this helped foster the “Arab Spring.” Bless your heart, Bush. And your guts.

As of now Iraq is the only nation, aside from Israel, that has any degree of freedom in that region, a situation that seems to trouble Obama, a situation he seems to be trying his best to change.

http://tinyurl.com/4xd8888

http://tinyurl.com/fa2o

On the 21-nation list: Scary, very scary. The commentor posts the list in order to persuade us that much of our military is unnecessary. Oh, my.